Cypher (or someone who feels like they can properly explain it): can you please ELI5 why sidechains will break the incentive mechanism? I haven't been able to follow this thread as well as I used to.

I think (cypher can correct me) its because taking transactions off (main)chain reduces fee-based income for miners. When the block reward dwindles after several halving that is their only incentive to mine. If they have no incentive, then they will not mine, the network will become more vulnerable.

eh ok, there must be some way to count off chain transactions and then credit the miners appropriately. I'm not saying this would be a trivial change, but this scenario is probably 10 years away minimum and I find it fairly difficult to believe that there is no way to get around this between now and then.

How does it work with merge-mining? If a main-chain has 90 petahash, then 2 sidechains are started, both merge-mined with the MC, do they all get 90PH security or 30PH each?

If sidechains were forced by design to merge mine with the mainchain then: 1) each sidechain is protected by their own hashing independently and 2) the mainchain would be protected by it's own hashing plus the sum of hashing on every sidechain. I don't know how you implement that, but it seems reasonable.

It can start being in versions way ahead, so by the time it reaches that block number and goes into effect, the older versions that don't have it are already obsolete.

When we're near the cutoff block number, I can put an alert to old versions to make sure they know they have to upgrade.

Satoshi was either utterly clueless about the system level difficulties of which would be encountered, or he strongly suspected what would happen at hard-fork time and was trying to smooth things over when someone noticed his handiwork on limiting transaction rates to this level. I like to think it was the latter but we may never know.

No matter how sharp/devious he was, I doubt that he could have accurately predicted certain things about ecosystem evolution and when what would be required to induce transaction fees. He himself may have never envisioned transaction fees (other than to make a believable marketing story) and thus really did believe in increasing the transaction rate to make sure they never became a factor. Or he may have wished them to occur and knew what a bitch it would be in reality to unroll his 1MB setting. Life is full of mysteries.

I am curious what are your thoughts as to Kimoto Gravity Well currently being talked up a bit by Pavel Chorbadzhiyski:

Seen in Donationcoin, Darkcoin, and Blackcoin earlier in 2013 and 2014 (not sure which implemented it first) in 2013 and 2014, there are some discussions that it could be used adaptively for bitcoin.

Anyway, let me know, there has also of course been _something related to it_ on the bitcoin-development discussion also, but maybe not exactly this, but I do not know to what extent, curious as to how you might consider that kimoto gravity well bit could be evaluated, or if it should be, in bitcoin context.

Seen in Donationcoin, Darkcoin, and Blackcoin earlier in 2013 and 2014 (not sure which implemented it first) in 2013 and 2014, there are some discussions that it could be used adaptively for bitcoin.

Anyway, let me know, there has also of course been _something related to it_ on the bitcoin-development discussion also, but maybe not exactly this, but I do not know to what extent, curious as to how you might consider that kimoto gravity well bit could be evaluated, or if it should be, in bitcoin context.

I was more interested before your edit when the question was about Kimono Gravity Wells. I've always been interested in what's under a kimono, and I could imagine gravity and a well being useful in revealing answers.

I've never been aware of any particular problems in bitcoin-land with difficulty adjustment. Alts have been attacked and have had problems, and I suppose that Bitcoin could as well under some scenarios (such as state sponsored molestation of centralized minning effort.) I've never even heard of the other coins you mention. My interest in alts is nearly nill.

In retrospect I think Bitcoin would have been much better off with quasi-random and periodically switching proof of work algorithms themselves. More significantly, I believe that the various kinds of rewards granted for supporting the system should be apportioned based on value added by diversity which would make the solution that much harder to attack. I started describing it on the paracoin deal, but haven't touched it or even looked at it for years.

Fact is though that my thoughts on the matter which I believe would have made a better currency would never have been practical in the beginning, and would never be practical to adopt in Bitcoin. So they are a pipe-dream.

I did envision sidechains shortly after I read the whitepaper as a means of scaling, but never did and do not now have the technical understanding or ability to know how to implement the two-way-peg and I'm not really sure that this rather obvious interface ever occurred to me though it should have. I gave up on Bitcoin as a viable base for a while during the satoshi-dice spam thinking that it was already mortally damaged with cruft. I've changed my mind on that and believe that if the Blockstream guys can get sidechains implemented, and if there is no more unnecessary bloat, Bitcoin is still workable and the best bet as top-dog, but a reserve-currency/exchange-currency differentiation needs to be recognized and embraced. Also, the code needs to just cease and lock with very little more work in order to preserve the confidence that it has. Vastly more development is needed, but it should occur at a different level.

Sorry to not really answer your question which was, I guess, sort of directed my way.

Seen in Donationcoin, Darkcoin, and Blackcoin earlier in 2013 and 2014 (not sure which implemented it first) in 2013 and 2014, there are some discussions that it could be used adaptively for bitcoin.

Anyway, let me know, there has also of course been _something related to it_ on the bitcoin-development discussion also, but maybe not exactly this, but I do not know to what extent, curious as to how you might consider that kimoto gravity well bit could be evaluated, or if it should be, in bitcoin context.

I was more interested before your edit when the question was about Kimono Gravity Wells. I've always been interested in what's under a kimono, and I could imagine gravity and a well being useful in revealing answers.

I've never been aware of any particular problems in bitcoin-land with difficulty adjustment. Alts have been attacked and have had problems, and I suppose that Bitcoin could as well under some scenarios (such as state sponsored molestation of centralized minning effort.) I've never even heard of the other coins you mention. My interest in alts is nearly nill.

In retrospect I think Bitcoin would have been much better off with quasi-random and periodically switching proof of work algorithms themselves. More significantly, I believe that the various kinds of rewards granted for supporting the system should be apportioned based on value added by diversity which would make the solution that much harder to attack. I started describing it on the paracoin deal, but haven't touched it or even looked at it for years.

Fact is though that my thoughts on the matter which I believe would have made a better currency would never have been practical in the beginning, and would never be practical to adopt in Bitcoin. So they are a pipe-dream.

I did envision sidechains shortly after I read the whitepaper as a means of scaling, but never did and do not now have the technical understanding or ability to know how to implement the two-way-peg and I'm not really sure that this rather obvious interface ever occurred to me though it should have. I gave up on Bitcoin as a viable base for a while during the satoshi-dice spam thinking that it was already mortally damaged with cruft. I've changed my mind on that and believe that if the Blockstream guys can get sidechains implemented, and if there is no more unnecessary bloat, Bitcoin is still workable and the best bet as top-dog, but a reserve-currency/exchange-currency differentiation needs to be recognized and embraced. Also, the code needs to just cease and lock with very little more work in order to preserve the confidence that it has. Vastly more development is needed, but it should occur at a different level.

Sorry to not really answer your question which was, I guess, sort of directed my way.

Seen in Donationcoin, Darkcoin, and Blackcoin earlier in 2013 and 2014 (not sure which implemented it first) in 2013 and 2014, there are some discussions that it could be used adaptively for bitcoin.

Anyway, let me know, there has also of course been _something related to it_ on the bitcoin-development discussion also, but maybe not exactly this, but I do not know to what extent, curious as to how you might consider that kimoto gravity well bit could be evaluated, or if it should be, in bitcoin context.

Thanks for posting. I don't frequent TBF boards, but from what I just read about this it is intended to address a problem with mining pools. That's all well and good, but it seems to me that it will be just another way to game the system. Personally, I think the problem with mining pools is only temporary because competition will even out the playing field. They are a social problem, not an engineering problem. The 2016 block window allows time for real world installations to have time to adjust. That is an engineering solution.

Any significantly advanced cryptocurrency is indistinguishable from Ponzi Tulips.

What made SNB take back their decision on continuing 1.20 Cap on EUR/CHF?

The noises that the ECB was making about copying the other major CBs (Fed, BoJ and BoE) and entering a full-blown QE program. The legal basis for this is dubious and so far Draghi has relied on jawboning. If the ECB started QE then the SNB would have had to add significantly to the $500 billion it has already printed in francs to buy euros to support their peg. They blinked.

Cypher (or someone who feels like they can properly explain it): can you please ELI5 why sidechains will break the incentive mechanism? I haven't been able to follow this thread as well as I used to.

I think (cypher can correct me) its because taking transactions off (main)chain reduces fee-based income for miners. When the block reward dwindles after several halving that is their only incentive to mine. If they have no incentive, then they will not mine, the network will become more vulnerable.

eh ok, there must be some way to count off chain transactions and then credit the miners appropriately. I'm not saying this would be a trivial change, but this scenario is probably 10 years away minimum and I find it fairly difficult to believe that there is no way to get around this between now and then.

Cypher (or someone who feels like they can properly explain it): can you please ELI5 why sidechains will break the incentive mechanism? I haven't been able to follow this thread as well as I used to.

I think (cypher can correct me) its because taking transactions off (main)chain reduces fee-based income for miners. When the block reward dwindles after several halving that is their only incentive to mine. If they have no incentive, then they will not mine, the network will become more vulnerable.

eh ok, there must be some way to count off chain transactions and then credit the miners appropriately. I'm not saying this would be a trivial change, but this scenario is probably 10 years away minimum and I find it fairly difficult to believe that there is no way to get around this between now and then.

Seen in Donationcoin, Darkcoin, and Blackcoin earlier in 2013 and 2014 (not sure which implemented it first) in 2013 and 2014, there are some discussions that it could be used adaptively for bitcoin.

Anyway, let me know, there has also of course been _something related to it_ on the bitcoin-development discussion also, but maybe not exactly this, but I do not know to what extent, curious as to how you might consider that kimoto gravity well bit could be evaluated, or if it should be, in bitcoin context.

I was more interested before your edit when the question was about Kimono Gravity Wells. I've always been interested in what's under a kimono, and I could imagine gravity and a well being useful in revealing answers.

I've never been aware of any particular problems in bitcoin-land with difficulty adjustment. Alts have been attacked and have had problems, and I suppose that Bitcoin could as well under some scenarios (such as state sponsored molestation of centralized minning effort.) I've never even heard of the other coins you mention. My interest in alts is nearly nill.

In retrospect I think Bitcoin would have been much better off with quasi-random and periodically switching proof of work algorithms themselves. More significantly, I believe that the various kinds of rewards granted for supporting the system should be apportioned based on value added by diversity which would make the solution that much harder to attack. I started describing it on the paracoin deal, but haven't touched it or even looked at it for years.

Fact is though that my thoughts on the matter which I believe would have made a better currency would never have been practical in the beginning, and would never be practical to adopt in Bitcoin. So they are a pipe-dream.

I did envision sidechains shortly after I read the whitepaper as a means of scaling, but never did and do not now have the technical understanding or ability to know how to implement the two-way-peg and I'm not really sure that this rather obvious interface ever occurred to me though it should have. I gave up on Bitcoin as a viable base for a while during the satoshi-dice spam thinking that it was already mortally damaged with cruft. I've changed my mind on that and believe that if the Blockstream guys can get sidechains implemented, and if there is no more unnecessary bloat, Bitcoin is still workable and the best bet as top-dog, but a reserve-currency/exchange-currency differentiation needs to be recognized and embraced. Also, the code needs to just cease and lock with very little more work in order to preserve the confidence that it has. Vastly more development is needed, but it should occur at a different level.

Sorry to not really answer your question which was, I guess, sort of directed my way.

No, I was interested in what you had to say about it. I do have a couple kimono things around, so I might have been thinking about that, but made a mistake and put them in the text instead of kimoto, which is indeed the proper spelling for this 'kimoto gravity well' item.

I wonder if this would be adjustable enough to allow ordinary users to "dial it down" so that, in accordance with the capacity of their machines, nearly anyone could mine on some similar system such as this kimoto gravity well? When you are using BCN, the amount of resource it needs is so low you can mine it using a laptop, but there is essentially no variation (nor user direction that would indicate some adjustment needed) for adaptive-ness in such a system. It just does it as far as I can tell. But in bitcoin (BTC) it is another matter entirely, and would be very interesting to see if users with limited equipment (say, those who only have laptops or towers) could make certain adjustments and run it as we used to some years back (2010 - 2011). That would spawn a whole lot of new interest to be sure, although I have about zero idea as to how technically it might work, I certainly found the visualization (graph) here interesting: https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/21730/how-does-the-kimoto-gravity-well-regulate-difficulty

Then imagine at the same time all this is happening, which introduces a lot of new diversity to the system, which I suspect is good, in come various approaches to sidechains. Regardless what anyone thinks of them, in they come, and one can imagine that there will be a system in which there will eventually be zerocash, or something like it, with its own consensus system being managed potentially on a sidechain independently from bitcoin, but still being able to be exchanged for bitcoin if someone were to sit at a table and say, "hey, let's exchange this zerocash token for some bitcoin" or something to that effect. Zerocash would have its own way of ensuring no double spends. Not to say sidechains are necessary for this to work, just turning over ideas in my brain randomly, and considering some questions to e-mail the zerocash developers, who have not (yet) released the zerocash code.

Cypher (or someone who feels like they can properly explain it): can you please ELI5 why sidechains will break the incentive mechanism? I haven't been able to follow this thread as well as I used to.

I think (cypher can correct me) its because taking transactions off (main)chain reduces fee-based income for miners. When the block reward dwindles after several halving that is their only incentive to mine. If they have no incentive, then they will not mine, the network will become more vulnerable.

eh ok, there must be some way to count off chain transactions and then credit the miners appropriately. I'm not saying this would be a trivial change, but this scenario is probably 10 years away minimum and I find it fairly difficult to believe that there is no way to get around this between now and then.

Alpari, who have gone into insolvency today, released this statement from their CEO

"I'm sure this isn't the last we'll hear on the subject and the SNB are going to be heavily scrutinised in the coming weeks for what appears to be a horribly irresponsible move on their part. For years central banks have tried to avoid days like today by being transparent and making moves like this over time while drip feeding their intentions to the markets. The SNB have shown themselves to be amateurs today and there is many people that will suffer considerably as a result."